clues at the scene

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Image at left of Shakespeare & Co. as photographed by Christine Zenino of Chicago, IL from 2011.

She hosts the image on wikicommons and allows us to use it here for the attribution. Thanks, Christine! (And thanks to Shakespeare & Co. who in no manner condone or endorse this post, blog, or any materials displayed or referenced herein. They might however endorse some of the Shakespeare quotes if they're asked nicely, I'd guess.)

I found a book tonight I'd misfiled in my library and so thought it gone forever.

It's a simple thing finding a book that one believed had gotten away. Some of my books travel and I'd guess some of yours might as well.

I'm not a good book loaner because I've sometimes been a poor book borrower. I have a volume -- Bogmail by Patrick McGinley -- that I borrowed years ago and have to this day as a precious reminder of a very good friend.

Anyway, I found a book that really is a bit inconsequential on the surface covering various aquatic insects; except, it is inscribed by the author (just a general signing ...doesn't know me from Adam) and I've come to use it as a nearly unimpeachable reference.

I thought it lost.

Now I have it.

I'm as happy as if it were my birthday and someone made me a cake.

I hope you tonight find something you've been missing and thought gone forever. Maybe a volume. Maybe a set of notes. Perhaps a pen with just the right feel.

Maybe a plot element or even just a word.

Maybe a single, precisely sonorous word which you will now use in the opening sentence of your next work and for that you too will smile, each time you read the sentence, before an audience of enchanted readers.

Jack

Jack Welling

I am a writer inflicted with this disease over 30 years ago. There is no cure but to become serious and write to the professional standard to which I aspire. Andy Deckert - a Breadloaf alum - is to blame. I love him for it.